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250 industrial plants have been subject to flooding
since 1978. If these events increase in the future as
a result of climate change, it becomes even more
important to increase the resilience of industrial
structures (MoENR 2010). It is currently unknown
whether the planning of new industrial construction
takes the impacts of climate change into consideration
(UNECE 2010).
An example of the consequences of poorly
managed toxic waste comes from the Tsana arsenic
mining sites in Georgia. When the three mining
sites were abandoned in 1992, approximately
50,000 tons of arsenic ore were left in surface and
some amount of highly toxic materials were in
unprotected containers. The three sites are close to
the Tskhenistkali River, a tributary to Rioni River,
and so the leaking arsenic waste posed a threat
to both nearby villages and the whole of Western
Georgia. There was a high risk that the waste
would be released into the environment when the
Tskhenistkali River flooded in 2013. Fortunately,
no further contamination due to the flooding has
been observed thus far. Due to a growing concern
regarding the contamination threat from the three
sites, a joint project of OSCE, UNEP/OCHA and
UNDP Georgia in cooperation with the Ministry
of Environment and Natural Resources Protection
was initiated in 2013 partly with the goal of
containing the waste more securely on-site (UNEP/
ENVSEC 2014).
In spite of the increasing need to consider climate
change when planning industrial activities, little
research has been done on how industrial structures
will respond to, or interact with, climate change. An
overview of the current risk zones of, for example,
old and unstable industrial sites, is lacking but clearly
necessary if catastrophic consequences are to be
avoided in the future (UNECE 2010).
Oil derricks on the shore near Baku, Azerbaijan